Dynamite
by featherbrain
Summary: Set in an alternate universe, where the Plutarkians take over Earth first, using it as a launching point for the assault on Mars. Charlene grows up quite differently than in the cartoon...sorry about the update delay... enjoy
1. Default Chapter

I own this computer... that's it. So sue me if you really want to, but it won't get you much.  
  
  
  
  
  
Chaos, confusion, terror... but then again, this was war. Or that was what her mother had told her anyway. She'd had no idea war was so loud when she'd nodded in agreement. She was only six after all, what had she known of fighting, and death? She knew now  
  
An explosion wrenched the ground beneath her, making it difficult for her to keep running. She stumbled, but pushed herself back to her feet, and continued on, dodging debris from a tumbling sky scraper. She wasn't really sure where she was going, but she knew she had to go. That was the last thing her mother had told her. "Run Charlene, get out of here. Live." She wiped the tears from her eyes with one grimy fist, as she pictured her mother, caught and held between two plutarkian infantry men. She'd been reluctant to obey, but when a third soldier had shot her mother execution style, the self preservation instinct overruled the shock.  
  
She'd been running ever since, dodging foot soldier, and air troops, but she was getting tired. Her muscles burned and her heart beat was loud in her ears, even louder than the explosions. She was frightened and alone, and she wanted her mom, but she wouldn't stop running while the city was coming down around her ears.  
  
She was young, but she had a pretty good idea what war was. It was the world coming to an end.  
  
  
  
"Anything good?" Faulken asked, his voice breaking up slightly with the static on the lines.  
  
"Nadda," Nyna answered, scanning the rubble a second time with her visor for valuables. She flipped up the eye piece on her headset, and growled in frustration. "I think Raffie and his crew got to this sector first."  
  
Faulken sighed, and Nyna pictured his deeply lined face twisted into a scowl. "Let's hope Grunt and Clang are having better luck," he said, grimly.  
  
Nyna nodded, but of course Faulken couldn't see her.  
  
This would make three bad raids in a row. Well, if pressed about it, Nyna would be forced to admit that they weren't so much raiders as scavengers. That's what they were, carrion beasts, space vultures. They followed the Plutarkian shadow, taking advantage of the destruction, luting the cities when the fish had beaten the natives into submission. The humans weren't very technologically advanced, but Earth was rich in many valuable minerals. Gold, silver, copper, and of course, precious gems. But the most valuable commodities were the survivors, worth more than diamonds to slavers. Nyna shuttered at the thought, but it was the truth.  
  
A survivor would turn this raid around, make it profitable after all.  
  
She removed her headset, shaking out her shoulder-length green hair, and turning her face to the sun, letting it kiss her blue tinged skin. She did love the sun, but then again all Kilthians did.  
  
Then, almost as if it was in answer to her thoughts, she heard a small "Eap!"  
  
She turned to she a small human girl, she couldn't be older than seven. Her face was dirty and tear streaked, and she was clutching a doll to her chest like it was a talisman to keep away evil spirits... or maybe like it was a fallen comrade. Her eyes still held a good measure of fear and confusion, but there was an obvious look of relief.  
  
Nyna was no linguist, that was Clang, but they'd all had to learn the basics of the most common earth languages. This was the city called Chicago, so most likely this child spoke English. Nyna leaned over and made an attempt to communicate.  
  
"Come here, girl," she said in slow, measured words.  
  
The child wasted no time, she dropped her doll, then launched herself at Nyna, and wrapping her arms around the Kilthian. She broke into childish sobs, and began speaking so rapidly that Nyna couldn't keep up. She made out the words "another human," and "survivor," and "mother," but everything else was a blur.  
  
It didn't matter, Nyna knew what she was saying. She was relieved to have found another human survivor. It was a mistake anyone could make, the Kilthians looked very much like humans, except for the green hair, and skin tone, which the girl probably hadn't even noticed.  
  
She patted the child on her head, and looked down into her trust filled eyes. Faulken was going to be very happy when she told him she'd found a survivor. She wondered how he'd react when she told him that he couldn't sell this one. It followed me home, Faulken, can I keep it?  
  
He was going to throw a fit.  
  
She knelt, and hefted the little girl into her arms. "Every thing will be alright," she whispered.  
  
  
  
"Her name is Charlene," Clang informed Faulken. Clang was a tall, lank man... well, sort of man. He had a lizard like appearance, and a habit of flicking his tongue into the air to catch scents. He was a scholar as well, having studied for several years before fate had forced him into the... ahem... salvage business. But he had a gift with languages, and Charlene had, at Nyna's prompting, told him about her ordeal, and how she'd managed to survive the Chicago massacre, as it had come to be known.  
  
Then Clang told her about them. If the Carlisle Prize were to be thought of as a pirate ship, Faulken would be the captain. The rest of them were his crew. Star pirates. That's what they'd told Charlene they were. She'd smiled and told Clang that it was like being in a story book, she asked if he'd ever read Treasure Island. Then she'd grown melancholy, saying her mother had read it to her.  
  
Faulken's eye twitched. "It should be diamonds, since that's what she's cost us. I need to pay the upkeep on this tub of rust!" He gestured around the ship, which was in dire need of some major repairs.  
  
"Not Diamond, not yet anyway, she's too young to be a Diamond." Clang said with a smile.  
  
"Fine, she's a lump of Carbon then!"  
  
"Ah, come on. Faulken, she's just a kid, you can't give her over to the slavers." Nyna said plaintively.  
  
"Oh yes, I can," he confirmed, "and I probably should."  
  
Grunt didn't say anything. He was Clang's younger brother, just as tall, but built much more powerfully. He looked quite menacing and he didn't have his brother's gift for language, so he had only managed to pick up a few possibly useful English phrases like, "I'm here to enslave you," and "stop whining, or I'll blow your fucking head off," not exactly and extensive vocabulary, and not the type of thing you said to a frightened little girl. He settled instead for waving at Charlene, and giving her what he hoped was a kind smile.  
  
She'd just buried herself further into Nyna's arms.  
  
Oh well, he'd win her over.  
  
"She's not going to the slavers," he said finally, giving Faulken a piercing stare.  
  
Faced with the determined faces of the rest of his crew, Faulken finally relented.  
  
"Fine! but you guys get to figure out how to make the repairs... not to mention the food bill."  
  
  
  
The food supply was running low, again. It happened when you had a crew like this. Clang and Grunt ate twice their body weight in one sitting... sure they only had to eat once every two weeks, but they got really lethargic after a meal, and didn't do much for days. It was a good thing that Faulken and Nyna were Kilthian, and able to augment their diet with photosynthesis, otherwise Burn, Frost and Carbon, all human, would starve. Not that they weren't close to it now.  
  
"Come on, girls... I'm getting ravenous!" Burn called plaintively from the floor. She was a short, lithe woman, with roan hair that cascaded over her white shoulders, when it wasn't tied up, as it was now. She had been practicing gymnastics when she'd collapsed mid-flip. She said she was brought down by hunger pains more effectively than any bullet, earning her a laugh from her other two companions.  
  
Frost was too busy lifting weights to make a proper reply, but she nodded in agreement.  
  
Frost was as dark as Burn was light, her skin was the color of Ebony. Before she'd been captured by slavers on Earth, she'd lived in Africa. She still talked about the Serengeti like it was a mythical realm... an Avalon, or Atlantis, sometimes, she would even sing in her native tongue, something the other two hadn't done in years, and Burn would sit beside her and look at the stars, and remember home.  
  
They had been taken much later than Carbon after all, Burn was thirteen when the Plutarkians invaded Paris, and Frost was nearing seventeen. They were lucky to have been found by Raffie. Though technically Faulken and Raffie were in competition, they were on relatively friendly terms. Carbon had gathered that they were related in some way, but had never pressed to find out how.  
  
Carbon had used all the money she'd been saving to buy the pair off the other crew, for a fraction of their market value. She hated the thought of slavery... it made her skin crawl.  
  
That had been less than five years ago, so if they wanted to pine for their lost homeland, that was fine with her, but Carbon had been on the Carlisle prize for eighteen years now, and as far as she was concerned, this was her home, and Faulken and Nyna were her parents.  
  
Carbon stopped her routine, and gave the pair a stern look. She'd been studying Kilthian fighting techniques for years, and had made it clear that no one was to interrupt her when she was practicing, but her own stomach made a plaintive cry, and she sighed and sunk down beside her comrades. She was hungry too.  
  
"Food run?" she proposed.  
  
Frost dropped her weights, and Burn vaulted up. They each grabbed one of Carbon's arms and yanked her to a standing position. That was a 'yes.'  
  
"Alright, I'll have to talk to Faulken about funding..."  
  
"Well, don't waste any time," Frost said, giving her a shove.  
  
Carbon sighed and left the practice room. This was going to be interesting.  
  
  
  
  
  
Carbon sighed. Life as a space pirate, the ad would say, see the universe, encounter new, and interesting life forms... and exploit them. That was her life. She probably should have known that she'd end up in prison someday.  
  
Well, strictly speaking, it wasn't a prison, it was much more like a lab, with a never ending supply of white rats, courtesy of the Galactic Protector Squad. Hey, they were criminals, right, who would care if we messed with them a bit. As far as Carbon was concerned, the place was a slaver's camp. They hauled in people like her, then shipped them out, with minor improvements, of course. A set of super-strong bio-mechanical arms, and a chip that makes them easy to command, and the ex-pirate was now a field slave.  
  
And then, of course, there were the slaves that were modified for, uh, entertainment purposes... she shuddered, that was the group they'd put her in. Earlier that day, they'd come for her other two companions, Frost and Burn. They were her teammates, but more than that, they were like her sisters. Carbon wasn't about to let her sisters fall into the hands of slavers.  
  
Luck had smiled upon her, though, and twenty minutes earlier, a guard had wandered too close to her cell. She'd knocked him out, stolen his keys and tied him to the bed. She had just finished modifying his communicator to make long range calls, and was in the process of contacting her friends aboard the Carlisle Prize.  
  
"This is Carbon, contacting Faulkin of the Carlisle Prize..." There was static, or maybe it was someone chewing in the microphone. "Grunt! God damn it, is that you?"  
  
"Yep, what's up, girly, we thought for sure you'd be back sooner."  
  
She'd never been happier to hear his voice. "Oh, thank God... listen, we've run into a little trouble with local law enforcement, could you guys come in for a pick up?"  
  
"Sure thing, I'll tell the boss."  
  
"Okay, give me about 20 minutes to get Frost and Burn, I'm transmitting the coordinates now."  
  
The guard began to groan, and Carbon hit him one more time, sending him back off into dreamland before stealing his clothes and relieving him of his weapons, a blaster, and a stun gun. It wasn't much, but it would have to do.  
  
She unlocked her cell, and slipped down the corridor in her newly appropriated prison guard garb.  
  
They'd lead Frost and Burn through a sett of swinging doors on the first floor, too bad she was on the second floor. She probably should have asked for more time, but she knew the guard came by every 45 minutes, and once they noticed that one of their own was missing, it wouldn't take long for them to figure out what had happened. She had to get her teammates, and get out of here.  
  
The stairs were around the corner, and not visible from her cell. Convenient, she thought as she poked her head out from the wall and surveyed the situation. At the head of the stairs to the first floor was a guard booth, where three heavily armed men were playing poker, while a fourth and fifth stood on either side of the staircase. That was all a good 600 feet away, though, and at this distance, they wouldn't be able to make out much more than a uniform, but the first time she tried to get past them, they'd notice that she didn't work here. Carbon groaned inwardly, as she ducked back around the corner. So the stairs were out... great. She leaned over the rail. About a 40 foot drop, she estimated.  
  
God it sucked to be a lawbreaker, now what was she going to do? She paced to the opposite end of the walkway, where it met the wall. A large rectangular metal object was pushed flush against the wall and the railing, it reached all the way from the first floor to just passed the third it took her a moment to realize that it was an immense breaker box. Perfect. She couldn't be sure, but it was a pretty good guess that the distance between the wall on the floor below and the breaker box was the same as the distance between the cells and the box on this floor. Four feet, the same width as the walkway.  
  
She took a deep breath, then hopped the railing, hooking her fingers on to the edge of the deck. She shinnied over to the edge of the box, then swung her feet out, planting them against the wall. So far so good. It was a little trickier getting her back against the box, but when she was firmly wedged between them, she began working her way down the wall.  
  
The prisoner in cell number 105 was more than a little surprised when a pair of boots were planted against his bars. Carbon put her fingers to her lips and gave him a 'shh...' he winked back, and she dropped the rest of the way to the ground  
  
fifteen minutes to go.  
  
She made it to the swinging doors, and through them. The hallway split off in two directions, she started down the right passage, but a furious scream came from the other direction. She'd know that shriek anywhere, it was Ice. She changed direction, and broke into a run.  
  
Thirteen minutes to go.  
  
The lab was guarded by two higher ranking stooges. Time to see how good this disguise was. She boldly stepped around the corner, striding up to, and past the two guards.  
  
"Hey, where do you think your going, cell watcher? You aren't cleared for this." said the guard that Carbon assumed was the leader.  
  
"Special orders sir," she said, turning and giving them a salute.  
  
The two looked at each other unsurely. "On who's orders," asked the other.  
  
"Uh... Colonel Blake." there was always a Colonel Blake somewhere in these types of outfits.  
  
"We'll have to radio for confirmation," they told her, turning around.  
  
Carbon took this opportunity to stun one of them, but the gun didn't have enough time to charge up enough to stun the second one.  
  
"Shit!" she hissed, then resorted to bashing the back of his head with the useless gun. She couldn't use the blaster in the hall, it would draw attention for sure.  
  
The second guard crumpled to the floor, and she glance around to make sure no one was around, before heading into the lab.  
  
There weren't any lights on, that meant no scientists... the butchers must have called it a night. She shuddered, that meant she was too late to keep her teammates from being altered. She only hoped they hadn't gotten around to installing the obedience chips.  
  
She stumbled around the room searching for a switch.  
  
"Who's there?" came a familiar voice. Familiar, and slightly different  
  
"Burn? Is that you?"  
  
"Eiye!" she screeched, "Carbon, It's you!."  
  
"Yeah, and we have less than seven minutes to get out of this place, so where are the lights already?"  
  
"Other side of the room," came Frost's voice. Carbon headed in the opposite direction of the voice. "Good, step to the right now, there's a desk in the way... too far, you're going to knock over that beaker... that's it... okay, a little further on."  
  
Carbon touched the wall. "Amazing, how'd you do that?"  
  
"You might want to just hit the lights..." Burn answered for her.  
  
"The switch is a little lower, yeah right there."  
  
Light flooded the lab, and Carbon blinked a few times as her eyes adjusted. She turned around, and saw the cages. That must be where her friends were... but she couldn't really see, it was too shadowy. As she approached, the truth of it hit her, though. Burn she noticed first, the flaming red fur, white around the wrists and ankles, and on the chest, pointed ears and nose, log bushy tail... She was still humanoid, but now had the unmistakable qualities of a fox. Then she saw Frost. She was hunched in the corner, her tail twitching in irritation. Now Carbon knew how she'd been able to guide her to the light switch... cats were known for there excellent night vision.  
  
"Oh my god... Frost, Burn... what have they done?"  
  
"Let's just get out of here," Frost said impatiently, and sprang to the door to give it a shake.  
  
From inside the cell, a third voice let out a shrill 'Eep!'  
  
"What the..." Carbon squinted, and saw a third victim of the scientists... a woman who'd been turned into a mouse. "Well, this is just great." she mumbled. They couldn't let her wander around without them, she was likely to trip an alarm, and they already only had five minutes to get out. She probably wasn't to keen on staying here, though. They had no choice but to bust her out.  
  
"Stand back." Carbon ordered, and shot the lock off the door before kicking it open. "Now lets get moving," she said shoving them all into the hallway, and past the unconscious security guard. They paused for just a moment, while Carbon radioed the Carlisle Prize again to update them.  
  
"Nyna, I need to get to a place where I'm next to an outside wall, can you give me a hand?"  
  
Nyna was silent for a minute, but Carbon knew she was just punching up the building schematics. "What is your position?" she asked.  
  
"About... 20 feet from the main lab."  
  
"Okay, go ahead, past the holding area. Go down to corridors, and turn right, you should be in the dining hall, the opposite wall from th door is an outside wall, but there may be guards there, eating."  
  
"Shit," she mumbled, then caught Frost and Burn's eyes, indicating the guards, which were still lying in the hall. They understood immediately that they were to arm themselves, and did so. The mouse looked at her and said something in a language Carbon had never heard. Clang had been a very good teacher, but apparently not good enough, it sounded like a bunch of gibberish. Carbon just shook her head, and pushed her down the hall.  
  
They made it to the dining room without incident. But as they entered, they noticed three guards hunched over their trays. Carbon was getting tired of the subtle approach. She blew the one of them to kingdom come with thoughts of mashed potatoes in his head. The other two had very little time to react, as Ice and Burn followed suit.  
  
"Good, now lets get out of here."  
  
Carbon set her blaster to overload, and tossed it at the wall. Burn tipped over a table and the three of them jumped behind it, pulling the mouse down just as the blaster exploded, sending chunks of wall flying everywhere.  
  
"Everyone okay?" Carbon asked.  
  
Burn gave her a grin, and Frost nodded solemnly. The mouse looked puzzled, but no one stopped to try to explain, she was obviously fine. The guards would be on the way now, there wasn't much time. The foursome headed toward the gape, and the three partners gave each other conspiratorial smiles as they pushed the mouse out first, then followed.  
  
"Nyna... are you there?"  
  
There was a breathless moment where no one answered, and Carbon became painfully aware of the ground rushing up to meet them.  
  
"Yeah, I'm here, Carbon."  
  
"Four of us, free falling... we're gonna need a pick up, like now!"  
  
Carbon could hear her smile, "no problem."  
  
  
  
They all sat around the table in the kitchen, Faulken had insisted on a detailed description of how they'd been captured be the local police while on a mission to pick up supplies. They were, of course, curious about the changes in Frost and Burn... and about the mouse, who had been oddly quiet since they reached the ship, refusing to talk to Clang. She just sat in the corner, staring at Carbon like she was trying to do a math problem.  
  
It was making her uncomfortable.  
  
They didn't say anything though, and even though Carbon knew that they were trying to make Ice and Burn feel like nothing had changed, everything had. For them, life would never be the same, they would never perceive the world the same, as Frost had demonstrated with the whole finding of the light switch in the dark, and it wasn't doing them any good to skirt the issue.  
  
So Carbon recounted the tale of how a clerk had recognized them from, of all things, an wanted poster... it had all been a little too wild west for her taste. And how that had landed them in jail. She told them about the slave trade, and the modifications, and shuddered when she thought about what they'd almost done to her.  
  
And through it all, the mouse just watched her.  
  
Creepy.  
  
After she'd finished her narrative, Faulken leaned back in his chair. "Sounds like quite an adventure." He said, "now what are you going to do about that," he asked, jerking his head in the mouse's direction.  
  
"Drop it off at the nearest spaceport for all I care," she answered, turning her nose into the air.  
  
"Really?" Faulken asked, sounding slightly surprised. "Well, until then, you'd better show her to the guest room."  
  
Carbon's jaw dropped, then snapped closed. She was never going to get to bed, but she answered "fine," and proceeded to rise and drag the 'guest' down the hall.  
  
She stopped in front of the guest room, opening the door, and motioning her in.  
  
The mouse looked at her for a moment, then spoke again, this time it wasn't in a language unknown to Carbon, though it had been a long time since she'd heard it spoken. Burn had been French, after all, and Frost was African... neither of them knew English.  
  
She said, "it took me a while to remember Earth languages... I just wanted to thank you, for rescuing me."  
  
"Well, it was either that or let you trip one of the security sensors," Carbon grumbled in response.  
  
"Of course..." she answered.  
  
"Besides, I wasn't about to leave you there, you'd just gone through the same torture as Ice and Burn."  
  
"Huh?" she looked a little puzzled, then smiled as realization dawned on her. "No, they didn't change me."  
  
"But..." Carbon trailed off, looking her over. Tan fur, large, round, pink ears on the top of her head, twitchy tail, mousey nose... definitely not typical human features.  
  
"I'm a Martian Mouse," she clarified, "My name's Harley." she extended her fur covered hand, and Carbon looked at it apprehensively, before taking it.  
  
"My name's Charlene, but everyone calls me Carbon."  
  
Harley raised an eyebrow, and Carbon smiled wryly. "It's a long story." 


	2. shadowboxing

Carbon spun on her heel, landing a furious kick to the gut of the man approaching her from behind, and sending him sprawling. It felt good to release her aggressions. Her foot on the back of his neck finished the job. He twitched once, then melted into the pavement of the alley he'd jumped out of. One down, three to go. She stepped up her pace, loping along now, searching for her next target. Search and destroy, her favorite game.  
  
She pulled up short as the street she was on came to a wooded park. Hm, tall, thick trees, forbidding shadows, and of course, a fog rolling in from the river. This was the perfect place for those other three bozos to set up an ambush. Usually, she'd sneak in, picking off her attackers one by one, but she was in the mood for a little carnage. She wasn't here to think, in fact that's why she came here to begin with, to escape the feelings of guilt that were gnawing on her insides. She smiled, a cruel, vicious smile, before charging headlong into the trees. Bring it on.  
  
She was quickly enveloped in a world of shadow and fog. Cold, misty fingers played across her bare arms, and found their way underneath the fabric of her tight-fitting training suit to wrap her in damp. She shivered, wondering for the first time if this was such a good idea.  
  
She remembered her conversation with Burn. She'd asked Carbon why she'd been avoiding them. Carbon had made it her personal mission not to see her friends when at all possible, but how could she tell them why? They must have enough problems of their own, adjusting to life in their new bodies, she didn't want to bug them with her issues.  
  
A rustle, then a disturbance in the air that was felt, more than heard or seen, and she was brought back to the present. She ducked just as an object came sailing at her head. She couldn't make out any of the figures features, just his shadowy silhouette. He came at her, and she dodged with a back flip, her feet landing against his chin. He stumbled, but she didn't have any time to take advantage of his weakness, because the second and third remaining men were already advancing.  
  
She sidestepped a kick that would have put her in the hospital, but wasn't quite quick enough to avoid a punch from the other one. She shook her head, feeling her cheek growing puffy already. That was going to smart tomorrow. The first guy now had himself righted, and was barreling into he fray. Carbon dodged him easily, and gave him a push as he passed her. He ran directly into Bozo Number Two, the two of them falling down in a tangle of limbs.  
  
Now, to deal with Number Three while they disentangled themselves.  
  
She whirled to face him, giving him a cocky smile, and waving him forward. He obliged, and brought him to one knee with a well-placed kick. A moment later, she had his head in her hands, giving it a merciless twist, the sickening CRACK reverberating through the forest. She turned from him, not bothering to watch him dissolve like his late partner. Two down.  
  
Number One, and Number Two were back on their feet now, and didn't even spare a glance for their fallen friend. They attacked in a fury of fists and feet. Carbon blocked easily at first, then with more difficulty. She laid one out with an upper cut, then turned her attentions to the other, stalking forward like a panther. She was focused on him, so she didn't notice when the one she punched hauled himself off the ground, shaking his head. She was taken by complete surprise when his arms snaked around her from behind. He pushed her arms over her head, lacing his fingers behind her neck.  
  
Her pulse quickened as the other one charged toward her. At the last moment, she kicked her legs up, ignoring the pain of what was surely a dislocated shoulder. Her heel hit him nose, shattering it, and he stumbled, doubling over, trying in vain to slow the flow of blood that poured from his face.  
  
She smiled in satisfaction, and drove her heel into the man holding her with as much force as she could muster. She heard his bones crack as his grip loosened. She threw herself forward, her adrenaline too high now for her to feel the pain in her shoulder, and he released her. She spun on him, kicking him savagely in the face. She leaned over, gripping his hair with her good hand and smashing it into the ground until he dissolved.  
  
Just one more left.  
  
She turned, running her hand over her face to wipe away the sweat, and leaving a trail of blood in its wake. She almost thought she saw the last one tremble… but that was impossible, he was incapable of fear.  
  
They began circling, then suddenly, the whole scene disappeared, to be replaced by darkness.  
  
"Simulation terminated." Came the monotone electronic voice of the computer. The lights came on, revealing a bare room equipped with holographic projectors and five training drones, one still in the holding unit, three on the floor where she'd left them, and the last one, standing upright, facing her in a crouched position, but unmoving. She straightened.  
  
"What's the big idea?" she hated to have her training interrupted.  
  
"I've been meaning to ask you the same thing."  
  
The voice was unmistakably Frost's, but it was grittier, like her vocal chords were stretched over sand paper. That was one of the changed that her transformation had brought, her beautiful singing voice traded for the ability to purr. Carbon wondered how she felt about the trade, then again felt a stab of guilt. If only she'd gotten there earlier.  
  
"You've been avoiding Burn and I since we got back from the prison… don't tell me you'd throw away our friendships just because we're different."  
  
"Oh… that." It wasn't that she didn't still care about them, my god, they were her best friends, but… she just couldn't look at them without feeling guilty. She was responsible for them, they were her team, and she'd failed them. She'd danced around the issue before, 'I've got to tune up my ship,' 'Time for dinner already?' and, about twenty minutes ago, 'I've got to go do some training, I've been slacking lately.' But this time, Frost had her jaw set, angrily, and Carbon could tell she wasn't going to get around it.  
  
"Well? You know, we only stay here because you guys want us to. If we aren't welcome anymore, Burn and I will leave."  
  
Carbon sighed, "can we do this a little later?" she asked, gesturing to her arm hanging limply at her side.  
  
"No, we'll do this right now." Frost said, punctuating her statement by jabbing her fingers against the injured shoulder.  
  
"God damn it!" Carbon cried, then bite her lip to hold back her tears, "what the fuck was that for?"  
  
"To get your attention, since you don't seem to want to talk to us anymore."  
  
Oh, right. Carbon sighed, cradling her arm to her chest. "Fine, you want to talk, let's talk."  
  
"I never knew you were such a selfish bitch, Carbon. I hate to mention this to you, but you aren't the one who was changed, you aren't the one who's going through a period of adjustment."  
  
"I know that!" she screeched, "don't you think I know that? That's the problem, Frost. It should have been me. I was responsible for you guys; I should have protected you. If anyone was going to be experimented on, it should have been me." Her voice dropped to a whisper, "I feel like I failed you, alright. Is that what you wanted to hear? Fine. I'm a failure as a leader."  
  
"Better a failure as a leader, then a failure as a friend," Frost said, reaching a hand to Carbon's good shoulder.  
  
"I'm sorry if you guys got the wrong impression."  
  
Frost shook her head. "You're admitting failure, and apologizing, you must be in more pain than I thought." Her smile said plainly that all was forgiven, "come on, let's get you to the infirmary."  
  
Carbon smiled wanly, and let her friend lead her out of the door, and down the hall.  
  
  
  
  
  
Carbon spun her shoulder around, with relief. She'd never notice how perfectly all the muscle and tendon worked together until they didn't anymore. She placed one grateful hand on the med-unit, glad that she'd convinced Faulkin to spring for it. "Ah, what the hell," she said to herself, leaning over and planting a kiss on its metallic surface.  
  
"My aren't you two cozy?" Burn said, from the doorway. "Should I go out, and come back in a few minutes, when you've had a chance to wrap this up?"  
  
"Better watch out, thanks to this baby," Carbon gave the machine a wrap, "I'm in peak physical shape." Then, she added soberly, "did Frost tell you I was in here?"  
  
Burn confirmed this with a nod, then she stepped forward, shaking her crimson head, "Why didn't you just tell us what was going on?"  
  
"Part of the 'mysterious aura' I try so hard to cultivate… sharing your fears with your peers is expressly forbidden." Her voice had the bite of sarcasm in it.  
  
Burn bit her lip in frustration. "This isn't funny, Carb. Do you have any clue how mad I was at you?" he tail had taken to swishing back and forth in irritation. "Jesus Christ, I've been turned into a fucking fox," she illustrated her point by pulling a clump of short, copped hair, out of her tail. "Look at this shit." She held the sample up for Carbon to see, "I'm shedding! I'm shedding, and you're too busy worried about your precious leadership skills to be there for me."  
  
Carbon sighed, and dropped her head, feeling the stab of guilt once again pierce her heart. "Look, I said I was sorry, okay."  
  
"Yeah, I know," Burn replied, her anger melting away as quickly as it came, "let's go get some grub."  
  
Carbon nodded, glad everything had been put right.  
  
  
  
There was one empty chair at the dinner table, when the pair made it to the mess hall. Harley's. The first time it had happened, Faulkin and Nina had insisted that Carbon go check up on her, and see if she was okay. She'd found the mouse sitting in her room, staring at a star chart, and trying to find Mars in the galaxy. She looked so homesick. Carbon, who could barely remember a home before the Carlisle Prize, couldn't begin to relate.  
  
Harley had asked to be taken back to Mars, but Faulkin had refused to return the woman to her home. And who could blame him? Mars was too dangerous for them right now. He had agreed to take her as far as he dared, a space station just beyond the orbit of Pluto, and give her enough money to hire someone to take her the rest of the way. It was obvious the mouse was disappointed, but Carbon though her captain most generous.  
  
No one asked her to check on Harley now, though. They'd become used to her absences.  
  
That didn't keep the empty plate from making Carbon feel uncomfortable. She'd lied, she could understand how the mouse felt. She'd felt something similar when she was locked away in her prison cell. And before… a vague memory of herself alone in her room, listening to the drone of the engines, and crying for a mother she'd never again see, a father who would never hold her again. Her sobs had been easily lost in the noise of the engine, her pain, in time.  
  
She pushed back from the table, her chair making a teeth-grating noise as it scraped against the metal of the floor. Carbon smiled weakly as all eyes turned to her.  
  
"Not very hungry tonight," she muttered, "think I'll hit the sack." 


End file.
